


Bear It From the Earth Below

by FreshBrains



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: BAMF Lydia Martin, F/M, Gen, Minor Character Death, Revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-12
Updated: 2013-08-12
Packaged: 2017-12-23 05:33:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/922590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreshBrains/pseuds/FreshBrains
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everywhere Aiden touched left a dripping handprint—blood on her hips, blood on breasts, on her back, on her face, blood smeared in thick lines that could never be washed away.  Blood tangled sticky in her hair like Carrie at the prom, but Lydia couldn't blow away her problems with her mind—why couldn't she do that?  She could scream for the dead but no matter how hard she stared at the gold planes of Aiden’s smooth back, his flesh never ripped apart and he remained whole and very much there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bear It From the Earth Below

Girls like Lydia Martin never really experienced true exhaustion until they wanted something so badly it tore their lives apart.

Lydia was used to going to bed early on a feather mattress and spending Saturday afternoons reading out by the pool. She floated like water in her thin silky dresses and clipped like a palomino on her expensive high heels; she hid her yawns with a well-placed, delicate palm. Girls like Lydia Martin spent their days smiling, giggling, rolling their eyes, and waiting for the day when something would happen and they could stop living on a cloud and plummet down to earth like Athena from Zeus’ skull.

For Lydia, it was werewolves—suddenly, one day, there were werewolves. There was one werewolf in particular, and she was afraid of him for so long, and then there was another one and she almost _loved_ him, and he turned out to be worse than the one before. 

And in the end, she knew what she needed to do. Her time had come.

*

“Lydia, we need you in the jeep. When you see Kali come out the south doors, call Derek and he’ll come and attack. I’ll be on backup on the roof.” 

Allison was tapping away on her cell phone, decked in all black head to toe, her hair yanked back in a sleek bun. She carried a duffel bag at her side, filled with jagged edges, but Lydia didn't ask. 

“What if someone else comes out first?” Lydia leaned against Stiles’ jeep, crossing her arms over her chest. The air was cold, too for October, but she left her cherry red leather gloves on the passenger seat. The wind made her fingers numb.

“They won’t,” Allison said crisply. “Isaac is in the east corridor with Cora. Scott is taking the roof. Derek is at the west end and Stiles is in the lab. There’s no way all of them will leave out of this door.” She glanced at Lydia furtively through her eyelashes, and cleared her throat. “Peter might be here, too. He’s on backup.”

Lydia had a routine whenever Peter’s name popped up in conversation. She made sure her back was pin-straight and her chest was puffed out, the standard posture of a woman on a mission, and aligned her face into the perfect grim expression of both boredom and disgust. It was a finely-honed look, one she had to practice through her tears alone in the bathroom mirror time and time again. But it was all just a look—it worked well enough with humans, but if she was with Scott, he could smell the copper of her fear and hear the rabbit-skip of her pulse.

This time, Lydia didn't even try. She remained tucked into herself by the car, arms folded, legs crossed at the ankle. She shrugged at Allison. “I’ll be fine. He doesn't scare me.” 

Lies were easy for girls like Lydia Martin, but not when it came to their equally-sharp best friends.

Allison dropped her bag on the ground next to Lydia’s feet, the black canvas a sharp contrast to Lydia’s new hot pink suede platform pumps, a size and half too small and pinching her smallest toe into numbness. “Lydia, we won’t let him near you. He’s our main target tonight, especially after Ethan came to us for help. You don’t have to worry.”

_Play coy, play sweet. Play it ice-cold._ “I told you, Peter doesn't scare me.”

But nobody was talking about Peter anymore.

*

Aiden was handsome. Aiden was charming. Aiden could be sweet when he wanted to be.

Aiden murdered Lydia’s classmate in front of her and then fucked her a week later, and all along he thought she loved it, that her smile when her hands gripped his shoulders was real, that her gasps when he pushed in just a bit too hard were genuine. 

It made Lydia sick to be thought of as that kind of person. She wanted a cute boy to fuck, no strings attached. She thought she had him in her hand, right in her palm where she held all of her boys like teacup Chihuahuas, like a fistful of change for the vending machine, dirty and sticky.

But he had her in his sights all along. She was never in control.

_You’re stupid. Stupid fucking girl._

“Just leave me alone,” she whispered in her bed every night when all she could see on the backs of her eyelids were Aiden’s claws sunk into Boyd’s flesh. “Please, just leave me alone.” 

Life is difficult when girls like Lydia Martin can’t stand up straight anymore. Life is difficult, but girls like Lydia Martin don’t talk about, and they try to move on.

*

“Are you sure you’ll be okay? Derek would understand if you didn't want to be here.” Allison leaned into the car, brow furrowed with worry.

Lydia shook her head and offered a small, tight smile. “I’ll be fine. I’ll call Derek when I see Kali.”

Allison nodded and squeezed Lydia’s arm. “I’ll be back soon. Stay safe,” she said, and jogged away to join Scott on the roof with her bow and arrows.

Once Allison was out of sight, Lydia worked on relaxing her body, starting at her toes. Frustrated, she kicked off her heels—she wanted to look good that night, she wanted to look powerful, but her feet were pinched and swollen. She rolled her bare toes in the coarse carpet of the floor mats and sighed, letting her muscles melt into the car seat.

Once her heart was pumping slow and sluggish and her cheeks were only flushed a delicate, healthy pink, she unbuckled the seat belt and sat for a moment with her hands on her knees.

She turned, reached into the back seat, and pulled an oblong wooden box out from underneath her green coat. It was an old box but timelessly elegant, about a foot long across and only a few inches deep. It was a deep unfinished cherry wood with a tarnished bronze lock and hinges, and it smelled faintly musty but sharp with some kind of spice, an unfamiliar smell.

The wood was plain and unmarked, save for one simple but beautifully-engraved word right beneath the lock.

_Lydia._

She checked her watch for the thousandth time, and once the minute hand reached its long destination to the twelve and the hour struck four in the morning, she took a deep breath and opened the car door.

She took the box and walked towards the trees.

*

The box was waiting for her on the front porch on a rainy afternoon two weeks prior, sealed safely inside a bundle of dark green fleece. Her name by the lock blared upwards from the warm cocoon as she unwrapped it, but it remained firmly locked, no matter how many fingernails she broke trying to pry it open. She shook it and heard nothing—but judging by the weight, it contained something heavy.

Lydia knew she should call Scott or Allison; tell them she was getting mysterious monogrammed deliveries at her door like she’d been putting out orders on Amazon Supernatural. She wanted to, but then she found the note, tucked inside the folds of the fleece.

 

_This will help you sleep better. Meet me the night before the next full moon in the clearing by the school and we’ll take care of it together._

 

She knew it was from Peter right away. 

She didn't know why, or how—the note wasn't signed, she didn't know his handwriting, but once you share a mind with someone and your thoughts are no longer your own, you can never really shake the feeling of knowing them.

It made her cry, right then and there on the porch, collapsed on her knees as the rain fell behind her. “Just leave me alone, everyone,” she sobbed, her chest one big tight ache. “I just want to be left _alone_.” 

She was tired, so tired, but not yet exhausted, even as she slumped against her door like a rag doll and set the box on her lap. All her life, Lydia was used to getting what she wanted, right up until the werewolves came.

 _What do you want, Lydia?_ The question rang in her mind, a hundred different voices asking the same question but not really caring about the answer—her mother, her father, Scott, Jackson, Allison, Stiles, everyone asking but nobody caring. The last voice was husky, masculine, articulate. Sarcastic and a little mean.

_What do you want, Lydia?_

Lydia rubbed the tears away from her eyes, fingers stained with mascara. She bundled the box back in the fleece and stood up, her knees creaking.

“I just want to sleep better,” she said softly, and went inside.

*

Lydia stood in the clearing and shivered. She forgot her coat.

If Lydia was the type of person to enjoy nature, it would be nice. The night was cool but crystal clear, the sky black as velvet and specked with stars. If she didn't know better, she would've thought the moon was full, but a small-yet-important sliver was missing. Lydia had grown to hate the feeling of trees and brush all around her—she liked walls and floors and ceilings; she liked security.

The box was heavy so she set it next to her feet on the thin, ragged grass. Something moved in the bushes and her heart sped for only a second. Whatever it was, it was too small to be Peter. Lydia figured Peter would make himself known. He was a fan of the grand entrance and Lydia half expected him to descend in a beam of moonlight, blood dripping off his outspread hands like holy water.

But when he did come, out from the same direction she entered, he was not alone.

*

Months before when Lydia had sex with Aiden for the last time, all she could feel was blood on his hands. Everywhere he touched left a dripping handprint—blood on her hips, blood on breasts, on her back, on her face, on her ass, blood smeared in thick lines that could never be washed away. Blood tangled sticky in her hair like Carrie at the prom, but Lydia couldn't blow away her problems with her mind—why couldn't she do that? She could scream for the dead but no matter how hard she stared at the gold planes of Aiden’s smooth back, his flesh never ripped apart and he remained whole and very much there.

She had sex with Aiden and she’d live the rest of her days covered in blood— _out, damn spot_ she couldn't help thinking with a grin, but she wasn't Lady Macbeth either. She lacked both the ambition and the frailty of Shakespeare’s women. Lydia’s anger would never drive her to madness, no matter how much it bubbled beneath her skin.

Peter Hale took her body from her when she was a sophomore, but she was an unwilling participant. He also let her go—she would never thank him for it, but she couldn't imagine being trapped in that wolfsbane haze with him for the rest of her life. She hated Peter, but it was a hollow hate, because he used her and hurt her but in the end, he left her alone.

But she hated Aiden because he refused to let her be. She chose to fuck him, she chose to open her body up for him, wrap him up in her skin and slick. She gave the vampire permission to enter the house, so to speak, and even though she revoked her claim, there would always be traces of his scent. He still smiled at her with shark’s teeth in the hallway, still let his eyes linger on the slope her neck when she stretched her arms in class.

He was always with her, and Lydia just wanted to be alone.

*

“Hello, Ms. Martin. I see you brought my gift with you,” Peter said, his voice cool and quirked with a pleased little smile. “I brought you something else to go with it.”

Lydia stood in the grass and stared, unable to move a single muscle, eyes wide with fear. She opened her mouth to speak, but all she could think to say was, “Where’s his arm?”

Peter’s arms were strong and bulging with muscle where they were wrapped tightly around Aiden’s body, one forearm across his chest and one held under his throat as Aiden gasped for breath. Peter’s arms were fine and strong and warm with blood and adrenaline. But Aiden’s arm, in contrast, seemed to be misplaced, and all that was left was a steadily-pulsing tangle of muscle and blood hanging from his left shoulder. Lydia wanted to be sick, or at least she should’ve wanted to be sick, but instead she just stood and stared. Blood dripped onto the grass and soaked into the earth.

“I know, I’m sorry. I wanted to bring him to you in one piece, but I’m not as strong as I used to be,” Peter said wryly, only a bare hint of struggle in his voice as Aiden thrashed in his arms. His head was down, so Lydia couldn't see his face, but when Peter pushed him to the ground, he let out a choked groan.

“That’s alright,” Lydia said, her mouth running on its own, her voice high and airy. “Is he dying?”

Peter pressed his booted foot to the small of Aiden’s back, keeping him on the ground. “Not yet. He’ll heal eventually, especially if Tweedle-Dee shows up and they smash themselves together. But the arm is gone for good.”

That gave Lydia a tiny, exhilarated thrill that zipped from her stomach to down lower. “How did you do it?”

Peter liked that a lot, it showed in his Cheshire-like smile. “Sometimes you just have to hold on with all your teeth and pull, darling.”

Lydia nodded—what else was she supposed do? She asked, after all. She managed to gather her thoughts for a second. “What’s in the box?”

Peter reached down into the collar of his bloodstained shirt. “Why don’t you,” he said, tossing her something small on a chain, “see for yourself?”

It was a bronze key.

She turned it in her hands. Aiden groaned on the ground—he was trying to speak, but Peter rolled his eyes and knelt down, straddling Aiden’s body, so he could hold the boy’s head to the dirt. It wasn't enough to suffocate him, but it was enough to keep him quiet.

“Not silver?” Lydia remarked, running her fingertip over the key.

“Cute,” Peter smirked. “Go on, open it up.”

Lydia knelt down, rocks digging into her knees, and slid the key into the lock. She looked up at Peter one more time, but he just smiled that smug smile of his. “This better not be a trick,” she said lamely, but didn't wait for a response. 

She opened the lid, and there on a bed of green velvet lay the most beautiful knife she had ever seen.

Lydia didn't even try to hold back a gasp. It was too much; too absurdly opulent, much too regal for a dark clearing in Beacon Hills. She slid her palm around the handle and slowly lifted it, testing its weight.

“It’s an antique German survival knife,” Peter said proudly, hand twisting in Aiden’s hair to hold him still. “The handle is made of elk bone, probably replaced over time. You see those stones at the base?” Lydia nodded, gently brushing the brilliant green stones with her thumb. “Those are real emeralds. Nothing but the best for you.”

“They go well with my hair,” Lydia remarked softly. 

( _“I like your sweater,” Aiden drawled, pulling her in for a kiss in the middle of the hallway. “It looks amazing with your hair.”_ )

“You bet they do,” Peter answered smugly. “Take a look at that blade, tell me about it.”

Lydia held the knife up to the moonlight, carefully tapping it, giving it a gentle bite. “The blade is pure silver. One side is for slicing,” she said, turning it in her palm, “and this side is for sawing. It’s serrated.” She gripped the handle so hard her knuckles turned white; she turned to look at Peter head-on. “This is a hunting knife.”

Peter shrugged. “Sometimes hunting is the means to survival.”

It hit her like a punch in the gut.

She swallowed heavily, the knife still in hand. “What will we tell the others?”

Peter shrugged again, face eerily calm. “We’ll tell them the truth. You were out here all alone in the clearing and Aiden attacked you. I had to intervene, of course.”

Lydia narrowed her eyes. “That makes me sound like an idiot. I would never come out here alone.”

Peter stood up, giving Aiden a swift kick to the ribs when he tried to follow. Peter approached Lydia slowly, sidling up to her like a panther, and took her free hand in his. She flinched, but only a little. “Maybe he seduced you, Lydia. Maybe he sweetened you up with nice apologies, kissed you, made you feel _special_ …” he drew out the word with a mean grin.

“Don’t patronize me,” Lydia warned, voice low and hot. “They know me. That’s not me.”

Peter didn't falter. “So maybe he snuck up on you, knocked you out, and dragged you out here. I came in on him fucking you in the dirt and I just couldn't let him go free, could I?” He circled Lydia slowly and ran a claw down the back of her neck until she shivered and smacked his hand away. “Either way, I’m the hero of the story and your little boyfriend is gone. We both win.”

Lydia wanted to accept. She wanted to get it over with and let Peter tell the others whatever the hell he wanted to tell them. But even after all that happened, Lydia was still used to getting what she wanted. She was used to winning.

And the thought of her friends believing Peter was her savior, her hero—it wasn't going to work. She would _never_ allow herself to owe him anything.

She moved closer to Aiden, who was still face down in the dirt, his breathing shallow. He couldn't even prop himself up. “Pathetic,” Lydia snorted, kicking his remaining arm with her bare foot. She nodded to Peter. “Pull him up, let him talk.”

Peter gladly complied, kneeling harshly on Aiden’s legs. He yanked Aiden’s head up by the hair, and he gasped for air.

His eyes were closed, practically swollen shut, and blood was running down his chin. “Lydia…Lydia, please, don’t listen to him. He’s using you. He’s manipulating you!”

Lydia laughed, kneeling down so they were eye-level. “Are you really going to go there?”

He coughed and a spray of blood shot across Lydia’s skirt, but she didn't even notice. “I swear I never meant to hurt you, Lydia…I was taking orders…Deucalion, he—“

“ _You don’t get to make excuses_!” Lydia screamed, and even Peter flinched. She hadn't meant to lose herself, lose control, but she knew there was no going back. The knife practically buzzed in her palm, she gripped it so tight that the jewels cut into her palm. “You fucking _ruined_ me, Aiden!”

She wiped her eyes, frustrated that she was crying, showing how angry and sad she truly was. “They kept telling me that werewolves weren't bad, they weren't evil. They let me run right into the arms of a fucking alpha werewolf and told me about it later like it didn't even matter. I’m done talking to you. Peter, hold him up.”

Aiden sobbed, panicked. “I’m begging you, Lydia, please…we were good together…we felt so good together, we don’t have to end it like this.”

_We felt so good together_. Lydia couldn't believe how differently Aiden saw her, how he saw them. He saw sex and dirtiness and a little fling in the janitor’s closet, and Lydia saw betrayal, saw pain and fear, saw her friends neglecting her and werewolves fucking her apart. 

_They don’t care about what you want, Lydia._

This time, it was only her voice, her very own voice, and she listened.

She locked eyes with Peter, and before she could change her mind, she leaned across Aiden’s bleeding body and pressed a kiss to Peter’s mouth, firm and slick and hard. He responded instantly, fluidly, like he knew all along that Lydia would kiss him, and that just made her angrier. She wanted to be cruel; she wanted Aiden to know that he was going to die listening to her kiss his enemy, that he would hear the spit and the slick sounds of what he used to have.

She wrapped her free hand in Peter’s hair and moaned as his tongue slid into her mouth, tasting like night and earth, even though she felt nothing but the red heat of anger. She didn't have much time left.

As she pulled away, Peter’s eyes were glassy, and she whispered to the both of them, “I know what I want, and I’m going to take it.”

Aiden kept speaking, kept pleading, but Lydia heard no more.

Peter gripped the boy’s hair, and Lydia gripped the knife.

She knew there would be blood, but she didn't expect it to be like a fire-hose, gushing full-force out of his neck as she closed her eyes tight and dug the knife harder. She killed him with the sharp side, a swift and deep gash to the throat, but she wasn't done.

She flipped the knife to the jagged side, the hunting side, the one that cut through sinew and bone. She held her head up; she was the Banshee, the girl who found the bodies, the goddess of death and destruction and chaos, Persephone and Athena and Discordia made flesh.

Peter smiled at her through the blood.

Lydia moved closer.

Then there was no more smiling.

 

*

So Lydia stood in the clearing, a woman who was so recently just a little girl who painted her nails and went to lacrosse games and did her homework on Sunday nights. She was a woman who waited for something to happen, and it happened.

So Lydia stood in the clearing, feet bare, limbs pale in the moonlight, body covered in drying blood from head to toe. Her bones ached, every single bone in her body was on fire, but there was also the sweetest sense of relief, the kind that only usually came after an amazing orgasm. She swayed on her feet, cold and tired.

_I’m exhausted_ , she thought, and she cried a little, but only a little. Who wouldn't cry after a night like that?

The sun set in the clearing, and she knelt on the blood-soaked earth again, trying not to pass out. She wiped the blade of the knife on her skirt, packed it into its box, and walked out the clearing. 

She didn't look back.

*  
Allison found her first.

Her face was stark with horror, taking in Lydia’s clothes and hair. “Lydia, oh my god, what happened? Where were you?”

Lydia didn't answer, but she took Allison’s offered helping hand.

Scott came running from the school. “We heard you scream, Lydia. _Twice_. Who was it, did you see the bodies?”

Lydia dropped the box onto the ground. She was crying again.

“I’m exhausted,” she said, and Allison wrapped a protective arm around her. “I want to go home.”

Lydia Martin was a girl who finally knew what she wanted. 

Her time had come.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic contains bloody violence and the death of two minor characters. Depending on how this fic is interpreted, this could also be a dark/evil!Lydia fic.
> 
> Title from "Don't Look Back" by She & Him.


End file.
